Well-formed proposals are the key to BidUnity's ability to apply machine learning to your company's benefit. By structuring the estimating process we enable trade contractors to record meaningful data during their ordinary business processes. New users might not be aware of how completely the construction estimating process is organizing the project information, so we wanted to explain what happens when a proposal is finalized. For those of you who may be considering a better approach to construction estimating, this is it.
Most estimators focus on the preparation and presentation of cost budgets for the customer's evaluation. If contracts are awarded, they invest time into creating additional communications which direct internal processes. Instead, we've thoroughly organized the underlying data structure so that everything which an estimator would need to do is done automatically at the time that the proposal is finalized. The ways that we have organized information allow us to save you tons of time and substantially reduce the burden of paperwork. Let's discuss what information is internally useful before looking at what information is presented to your customer.
Finalizing the proposal produces detailed financial budgets for each type of work included in your bid. You have access to review stored cost information which includes the predicted cost, the margin on that work item, and the total value proposed to the customer.
The durations of each activity are associated with each of type of work. We understand that you might approach budgeting for labor by using square footages applied to overall areas, but we encourage you to associate labor durations with parts and components for more accurate duration estimates. Even if you do not know what these values might be, you can still guess at them and use your other method for determining the value of the labor proposed. The activity durations will be based on the association with the constituent materials. Over time, as BidUnity learns more about construction durations it will figure out the best way to estimate labor durations.
The underlying assumptions about how long the activity durations will last are documented. You will always be able to refer back to the sources of your assumptions. In the case of users with sufficient data for BidUnity to make more accurate duration estimates, we'll record that information for your reference as well.
All the materials required to be purchased are fully organized. You can manipulate that information in several different ways including the following:
We realize that this is a little bit premature, but providing this information helps new users check the configuration of product systems to determine whether they are configured to correctly account for all the required materials. Every part is required to be either "stock" or "non-stock" material. The difference is that "non-stock" materials cannot be ordered without first collecting field measurements.
Your proposal's value is determined by the underlying quantities of labor and material in addition to other factors. The scope of work included on your proposal is strictly defined by the specifications and elevations which are included.
You thought we were going to start here didn't you? When you think about it, all the information that was discussed above goes into creating the proposal documents which are used to communicate with external parties.
The process that we have laid out for you to create proposals is very efficient. You should be aware that everything you type into the computer will be used to compile the proposal. We don't waste a single key stroke or require that you enter the same information in any two places. Consider the data entry which goes into making a proposal.
The "Construction Proposal" is where we bring together all the cost information; the recorded specifications; the quantity, size, and configuration of the elevations; and all your labels for the work elements.
A good construction proposal template allows the reader to quickly understand the total proposed value, what is included in that value, and what is not included in that value. An even better construction proposal provides specific details about these items where the reader is interested to know more. Because our construction forms are html based, we can to make them easier to review than paper based formats. Customers can explore the constituent cost items by clicking on their values to expand and collapse itemized breakdowns of your expense accounts and the included elevations.
Some of us might have a bias toward providing less information, also known as the way that we have always done things. Before you decide that too much information is being provided, consider how hard you want to make it for your customers to qualify your proposal. I know, sales people may be inclined to leave their customer wanting more, to provide just enough information for their customer to pick up the phone and call for more information. We think that the most professional approach is to provide the complete set of information initially and then to follow up by calling the customer.
Falling back to our well-organized data structure, automatically compiling product submission documents based on the proposed materials is very simple. We just get all the product literature associated with the product systems and materials which form the basis of your proposal. We also present this information along with your proposal to further qualify your bid. Still thinking about leaving your customers wanting more information? How about bidding more project with all your extra time instead?
Ok, we know improvements can be made here. We provide your firm with an ok contract, but in the future, we are probably better off allowing your company to upload a PDF of the contract that you want...let us know how we can improve this for your company.
Yes, we can create and schedule the values of the project based on your proposal. We know that you could do a better job in consideration of the specific project, but we haven't received any negative feedback from our users on this item. Just a quick explanation as to how we put the schedule of values together.
Now we know what you are thinking. Yes, BidUnity handles your progress billing forms too. You can learn more about the standard construction documents supported by BidUnity on our project forms page.
By allowing our users to create and customize rules for determining how systems of products are evaluated, we provide trade contractors with the ability to use BidUnity for creating cost estimates for whatever type of work that they perform. If you find a use case that we haven't addressed, let us know about it so that we can expand our programming to support the community's needs.
When you think about junior estimators, those just starting out their careers in estimating, they generally approach formulating proposals in logical ways. There are many logical ways to evaluate costs and assemble proposals, but there are equally as many ways to structure and represent that information on your proposals.
The problems that many trade contractors encounter is that they require several different software programs to support the various types of work that they perform. Further complicating matters, they spread data across other platforms when administering projects. This dispersion of information across different platforms and it subjective organization render it useless.